Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Monday said security agencies had arrested an alleged \u201cwould-be suicide bomber\u201d as they foiled a terrorist attack on Independence Day.<\/p>\n
The security situation in Balochistan has worsened in recent months, as terrorists, long involved in a low-level insurgency, have stepped up the frequency and intensity of their attacks. The banned so-called Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), in particular, has adopted new tactics to inflict higher casualties and directly target Pakistani security forces.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference in Quetta alongside other top officials, the chief minister said: \u201cOn August 14, the suicide bombers had planned to target innocent citizens who were celebrating Independence Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
He commended the security agencies, the Balochistan Counter-Terrorism Department, and the police for saving the province from \u201chuge destruction\u201d.<\/p>\n
CM Bugti then aired a recorded statement of a highly educated man who had been arrested for his alleged involvement in facilitating terrorists.<\/p>\n
In the video, the man, working as a lecturer at Balochistan University, confessed to having links with terrorist groups. After airing the man\u2019s statement, CM Bugti noted that the information being shared was \u201cnot in great detail\u201d, so as not to sabotage ongoing investigations.<\/p>\n
He recalled that the Nov 2024 Quetta Railway Station bombing, in which \u201c32 precious lives were lost and 50-plus were injured\u201d, and explained how the arrested lecturer was allegedly involved in facilitating the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (the lecturer) had him (the suicide bomber) sit on a motorcycle and dropped him near the railway station, and after that, handed him over to another handler about one kilometre away from the railway station,\u201d Bugti said.<\/p>\n
Stating that some attributed the Balochistan militancy issue to \u201cdeprivation\u201d, the chief minister rhetorically asked: How are these people deprived?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mother is still receiving a pension which means she was a government employee, his wife is also a government employee, he himself is a Grade-18 [officer], has studied and done a PhD on Pakistani scholarship, brother is an employee in Reko Diq [project], which means he was not deprived in any way,\u201d Bugti added.<\/p>\n
CM Bugti explained that the BLA\u2019s Majeed Brigade operated in \u201cthree to four tiers\u201d \u2014 \u201cfootsoldier\u201d being the lowest and comprising uneducated people, the second tier using women for targeted killings in cities, and the top-most \u201csophisticated\u201d tier that the lecturer was a part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time security forces have accomplished such a big success, of arresting a leader of Majeed Brigade\u2019s \u2018sophisticated\u2019 tier,\u201d Bugti said.<\/p>\n
He said that the narrative about \u201cdeprived people engaging in such acts\u201d, which he noted was also echoed in a multi-party conference (MPC) in Islamabad yesterday, was \u201can attempt to legitimise this entire fight against Pakistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a gathering organised by the Awami National Party on Sunday, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman questioned the government\u2019s writ in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s tribal areas. Balochistan National Party-Mengal and Jamaat-i-Islami were among the various parties that attended the moot.<\/p>\n
Bugti mentioned that when the CTD went to arrest the \u201cwould-be suicide bomber\u201d, his neighbours intervened and tried to resist the arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to tell the people of Balochistan: we filed an FIR (first information report) against all of them, every one of them is arrested.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut please, stay away from these people. If you stay close to them, you will also be treated like a suicide bomber,\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has nothing to do with unparalleled or underdevelopment,\u201d Bugti said, again criticising yesterday\u2019s MPC for terming violence in KP as terrorism but describing the militancy in Balochistan as \u201csomething else\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Monday said security agencies had arrested an alleged \u201cwould-be suicide bomber\u201d as they foiled a terrorist attack on Independence Day. The security situation in Balochistan has worsened in recent months, as terrorists, long involved in a low-level insurgency, have stepped up the frequency and intensity of their attacks. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11448,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446\/revisions\/11448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}